


Feral Heart

by daiyu_amaya



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captivity, Friendship, Human Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 14:25:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5747821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daiyu_amaya/pseuds/daiyu_amaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knew that her world was changing, what she didn't know was that S.H.I.E.L.D was bursting their way into her life or that she would see daylight</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My character is a feral hence the title, this is more like an introductory story than anything else, In prep for another story.

The facility was top notch, S.H.I.E.L.D was having a tough time of taking the building. They had isolated the portion of the building that held all of their biological experiments, But, with extensive damage to that part of the facility they figured most of the experiments had either died or were free and roaming the dunes that had once covered the building from outside eyes. Their experiments were both grotesque and inhumane, they did experiments on children-to see if a child could withstand biological manipulation once they realized that adults couldn't handle the stresses. As far as S.H.I.E.L.D had found out, there were seven children in the facility at any given time. They would weed out the weaker children and leave only their best work. Whether or not there were powerful children in the facility that was unknown and S.H.I.E.L.D would rather not have to deal with terribly strong children.

* * *

A young girl scrambled out of the sand that covered her, She huffed and looked around. The room she was in was filled halfway with sand and the hum of energy sparked above her. Others were digging themselves out of the sand as well. Her eyes widened with the knowledge that she would die if she didn't get away from the others. With that she raced across the sand to a doorway that had been blown open by the force of the sand hitting it. She dug at the sand, if she didn't get the door closed she was as good as dead, she pushed the door but it only moved a little bit so she went back to pushing, shoving, and scooping the sand out of the way something in the room she'd just been in roared and heavy footfalls made themselves known. She shoved at the door even harder and finally a loud click resounded, the door barring itself. The girl leaned against the door, exhausted and in need of a good snack.  
She could hear men shouting, but it was too far away to be any immediate concern to her. She let out a breath and looked for somewhere safer to rest, the ceiling was pretty ruined but there was enough of it that she could hide in it. She stood and bounced upwards with inhuman grace into the ceiling.


	2. Chapter 2

O.C POV

Zero frowned, was that the sound of feet running? She peeked out from behind the broken ceiling and spotted a person, a man person at that. He stopped at the door-he was a dark man, no hair on his head other than around his mouth, with something strapped to his face. Didn't he need the eye? He turned to the door so she couldn't see his face, but his tense shoulders told her something upset him. But, why would he be upset? He picked something up from the ground at first she couldn't see what it was, he said some strange words she didn't know into a box thing and It was then that she noticed something shiny in one of his hands, She'd seen those packages before-it meant food.  
She squirreled down from her hiding place...The man jerked as she grabbed the shiny foil of food. He made a noise between irritation and fear, but she was far too busy opening the packet to take much notice of that. She glanced at him, A shiny thing the guards used pointed at her-she knew it meant pain but since she'd surprised him she wasn't overly worried. "Egg?" His one eye blinked at her. "What?" She tilted her head, didn't he know what an egg was? "Egg?" She fiddled a little more with the packet and found to her dismay that no, it wasn't eggs it was something else. Still food was good to have and she hadn't been fed yet. Maybe this was a test too?  
"Who are you?" She shrugged; She didn't know words the way the others did, They called her Zero, or Numbers, that last one was a nickname one of the scientist had told her before, because she was good at math’s.

  
Her old feeder had told her the same, taught her the basics. "Well then how did you get out of this door?" She pretended to push the door and pointed at herself. She could see the fear in his eyes before he cursed, she hissed at him backing up, she didn't like the smell of his fear not one bit and he froze. "I'm not mad at you." She wasn't sure if she should believe the man person or not. If he wasn't mad then why did he smell of fear? "Damn. So you closed the door, are their others behind it?" She nodded, She knew that her speech was broken, they never really taught her how to speak, and it seemed easier for others to know what she was saying if she didn't actually say them. "Do you know where anything is?" Well, no but she could barely smell the fear stink from the Director and he would know. She shook her head but then used her fingers to pretend walking-she pointed at him and then herself. If he followed her she could take him to the Director. She moved and the man person turned, she made it to a corner and peeked back at him again, he was following her. Good, the man person was smart that was very good.

  
She sniffed, where did the fear stink lead to? She was a little scared, the hallway looked dark and the lights flickered. Was something going to pounce at her? "Do you know where the director is?" She nodded and once more motioned for him to follow her. He nodded and she headed off towards another hall way, the director must have been the one to open all the doors since his smell was so strong and the doors were all open. Usually she only saw closed doors. She peeked around another corner and spotted something on the ground. She walked up to it and realized it was the man person that was mean to her-he was a guard. But, he teased her-and he had a shiny that she wanted badly-did he still have it?

  
She rummaged through the pockets and the man person that was following her snatched up a square. What was that? It didn't matter, she continued and found the little shiny bird creature that the man had-it was a nice shiny thing. She wrapped the long string around her neck like she'd seen the guard do and grinned as the thing stayed on her. She sniffed again, the stink of the Director was still strong. He had gone by not long before, she followed it till she found a door that was closed and looked at the man person following her who put the square against the black thing on the wall and suddenly the door was opening. She shoved through it as it opened, and nearly fell down stairs, or up-there were more stairs than she'd ever seen before.

  
"An escape way." The man person muttered. She sniffed, he was going up-she could find him quicker if she jumped.  
She climbed up on the railing? Was that the right word? She looked upwards, then finally she spotted him, he was up a bit more than they were and he was still going up. Where was he going? She clamored up on the railing before the man person following her could stop her and jumped off, pushing upwards with her legs.

She easily cleared to the next railing and before she knew it she had caught up with the director. He looked so shocked as she went to tackle him, he bounced off the opposite wall and she growled at him. His fear stink only getting stronger. "Zero!" He shouted, she grinned at him toothily. The one that followed her came up to them panting-maybe he'd run all the way up? The director froze. His eyes growing huge, like a mouse caught by a cat. "Director Charles Graff." The man person growled, and the Director frowned; “You’re coming with me.” And the man person used something strange to bind the directors hands, what was that white stuff? Why did it make clicking noises? “She shouldn’t be out, she could kill both of us!” She knew he was talking about her, but what did the words mean? She followed as the man person and the director continued upwards, what was up?  
They managed to hit a doorway, and when the man person opened the door she closed her eyes at the brightness. It burned her eyes and she felt wetness on her face, she blinked a few times as she continued to follow the man person who had a hold of the Director still. There was lots of brown all over the place and she touched it with her hand when they left the cool darkness of the stairs, she shivered as her hand sunk into the brown stuff like it had before when she'd been digging herself out of it, but the others seemed not bothered by it so she followed after them. Only to hiss at the brown, it hurt her. The man person turned and sighed; He pushed the director over and walked back to her. "Come on." And he scooped her up and placed her on his shoulders before he went back and grabbed the Director who was trying to get all the way up.

  
“Director Fury sir!” Another man person said, he rushed forward with a few other men people and took her director away. Director Fury? The man person put her down and sat down at a table that was shaded from the sun by some kind of bigger white table. They helped him out of his long shirt and the shirt under that. He was bleeding, why hadn’t she noticed the smell of blood? She knew what it smelled like. Others swarmed him and she sat on the brown thing that ate everything, sinking in a little bit. The Fury looked at her as others cleaned and put white squares on him. "You helped me Zero, thank you." She smiled and a few of the man people smelled suddenly of fear. What was wrong with her to make them scared?

  
“Director, The others are contained-is it wise to have her outside?” The Director looked at her and she wondered what was she doing outside. It was her very first time-she didn't know that the sky was that blue or that the air smelled so dry. “She helped me, she found and caught Charles Graff.” The tall woman person stared at her, and then back at the Director. “She could be a danger to us.” She shook her head, the woman person was wrong. She saw paper fluttering and rushed towards the table, surprising men people-she found a blank paper and a writing tool and wrote the only way she knew how, in mathematics. She was glad that one of the men people that worked on her taught her how to write numbers. A man person stood looking at her numbers from the other side of the small table, "She's writing code it looks like sir, maybe the override code?" She didn't know what an override was but she knew the door numbers.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fury's pov

"Well looks like she's trying to prove you wrong there Hill." Hill rolled her eyes at me, the child was quite the sight though, she had a cat like golden eyes and her hair was a orangish color too, the kind you found on a tabby and she had long talons on both her feet and hands. "She helped me out and now she's helping shield." Hill huffed; "I still think this is a bad idea, what if she turns on us?" He was pretty sure the child Zero wouldn't know how to turn on someone. She'd simply been leading him to the Director like a seeing eye dog led the blind. "I think her mind is too simple for lying Hill. She didn't speak a word to me while we were down there except to say egg to me when I found a ration on the ground-she looked disappointed that it wasn't eggs. I think they didn't teach the children to talk at all."  
Hill glanced at Zero who was done writing. Agent Weasker took off with the paper and Zero came back towards him, Hill stepped in front of him and Zero hissed. She sniffed the air and then was at Hills boots; "Egg? Have egg?" Hill looked at him and he shrugged; "She seems to really like eggs apparently." Hill closed her eyes for a moment before shaking Zero off. "No I don't have any eggs." Zero pouted. "How old are you Zero?" It came to mind he didn't know and she looked tiny at that. She counted on her fingers and then showed him six of them. Jesus Christ, only six? "How long have you been here?" Hill asked and once again Zero showed them six fingers, her whole life... "Have you ever been out here?" Zero frowned and shook her head, and took a deep breath. "Well, we can't just leave her here-she's obviously got more brains then the others do and she looks more human then them too." Hill commented, was Zero growing on the woman or something? “Why aren’t you speaking?” Hill asked and Zero tilted her head and opened her mouth and let out a shriek. Hill covered her ears and Zero stopped with a grin, her teeth would need filing down because they were overly long-probably why she couldn't talk.   
"Sir." Hawkeye said as he walked up. Stopping before him Hawkeye gave his report. Zero took to sniffing his shoes. He glanced at her with amusement in his eyes. "And what's this?" Hill rolled her eyes again; "She's one of the experiments." Hawkeye frowned; "She seems much more docile then them-which by the way they've gotten out." Zero's head darted upward. The hawk pendant she'd taken from the corpse swinging. "Out? No-bad, Out Bad." So she could talk a bit more than he though she could-well he might have to rethink the intelligence level of Zero. "Why?" Zero shook her head with a small no and put her fingers to her lips. "Oh god-Sir I think we should evacuate the building." He frowned at Hawkeye; "Why? What did she just?" Hawkeye glanced at Zero who looked up at him. "They haven't eaten-she used sign language to say eat." and she'd said no before...so. Great. "Hill clear everyone from the facility. We're going to have to bomb the place." They couldn't let a single creation out of the building other than Zero. The ground rocked and sand began moving to the right of them and Zero was on hands and feet, a hiss emanating from her. A hairy hand reached out of the ground and Zero jumped onto Hawkeye and in a blink off of him towards the hand. He stood and pulled his gun as Hawkeye recovered and pulled out an arrow into the bow. Zero stabbed an arrow in the hand and a howl made it to their ears. "Bad Dog, Bad Dog!" Zero shouted and stabbed a few more times into the hole. The howling cut off suddenly and Zero made her way back to them. She wiped the arrow off in the sand and handed it to a shocked Hawkeye. "I didn't even notice her take that."   
She grinned at him and flopped onto the sand, covered in reddish black blood. "Ahhhh." She opened her mouth wide with the sound. "Sounds like she's hungry." Hawkeye sounded close to laughing and fished out a ration and tossed it to Zero who was on it in a second. She yanked open the package and laughed; "Food!" And she was stuffing her face with it.


	4. Chapter 4

"So what have you been up to?" Tony asked, and boy where did he start? It had been nearly two months since he'd met Zero. "Been bonding with a little girl named Zero." Tony frowned; "Who'd name their kid Zero?" Nat sighed; "She's an experiment from Hydra." Tony ah'ed and then continued tinkering with the helmet of his suit. "Do you have to do that at the dinner table?" Steve asked, if any one in this team was a mother hen it was Steve. "Aw but mom." Tony came back with, and by the look in Bruce's eyes he wanted to laugh.  
"So, how is Zero?" The captain had met her briefly, right when she flipped him and damn wasn't that a sight? The captain being flipped by a six year old? "She keeps scratching up her room." Natasha said in a bored tone. Clint was pretty sure it wasn't really Zero's fault, though he had given her caps for her nails. Those seemed to work out fairly well-she hadn't been able to scratch up his bow with them on. "I finished those caps for her so she shouldn't any more." Nat nodded; "That's good." They went back to their food for a moment. "So, I heard Zero's pretty smart." Bruce threw out, and where exactly had he heard that? "She's pretty smart yeah." Nat said with a question in her voice. "They wanted me to look at her DNA, she's got some similarities to me." And that was actually pretty interesting. "Explains why she was able to push me." Steve said. Clint was pretty sure that Steve didn't want Tony to know that he was flipped by a small girl. It would be pretty embarrassing and Tony would never leave it alone-he'd always make a crack about it.  
"Zero no push, Zero throw." The small voice rang out and they turned, the little girl was on her hands and feet, a smug look on her face and Fury next to her. She had started to talk more, the more she learned the more she talked. It was like a mini Tony actually. "I though I would bring her now, but I see my timings off." Zero sniffed at the floor and then the air. "Food?" Fury chuckled; "She's also got the apatite of a black hole." He picked up some of the bread from his plate and chucked it at Zero who caught it like a cat would a bird out of mid air and she happily munched on the bread. "I'm leaving her in your care. Don't let her escape." And Fury was gone into the elevator, "Dose anyone else hate when he dose that?" Tony asked. Zero came up to me, her nail caps clicking on the floor and I slipped her some more food. "Here, let me get her a chair." Steve said and got up. "She might not know what to do with it Steve." Natasha said in a bored tone and Zero huffed; "Chair for sitting. Sitting table for food." and Zero scampered up the chair Steve put out for her and sat on it, though not like a normal person would. "Your butt suppose to touch the chair Zero." She stared at me then really looked, Zero sat on her rump and made sure it was right. Steve placed a plate in front of her.  
The whole process of teaching her to use a fork was marred by spaghetti in Steve's hair and lots of laughter. Fury hadn't been kidding about her appetite either. "Zero, how often did they feed you?" Zero frowned at the question posed by Bruce. "Five times a day." Whoa okay that wasn't too much, so why did she seem so ravenous? "Taste funnier then this food." Bruce frowned; "They might have been giving them high protein diets." Zero pushed a noodle closer to her mouth with the fork before it plopped onto her lap, she happily ate it but now she had a splotch on her jumper. "Zero, be more careful." Natasha groused and Zero slurped her noodle getting sauce everywhere. "Try." Zero leaned forward and snagged another noodle and ate it over her plate. "Would you like a drink Zero?" Steve asked and Zero nodded. "Is it just me or is he coddling her?" We chuckled and Steve made his appearance again, Zero took the cup with a nod of her head and drank half of it in what seemed to be one gulp. "What cod..coddling?" Steve glared at Tony who chuckled. "It means he's acting like your mother." Zero frowned; "What mother is?" Of course she wouldn't know what a mother was, she was a lab rat. "Its the person who gives birth to you." Zero giggled; "Man person made me, man people don't give birth." She was still doing that then. Tony gave her a strange look and Steve just looked like he didn't know what to think. "How were you born Zero?" She tilted her head at Bruce's question; "In tube like others. Men people wake, tell to burn-men people run from us when the wakers tell us hurt." That sounded pretty normal for Hydra, to sic their creations on other people. But, why on the scientist that made Zero?


End file.
